My Mommy is a Teacher!

Explaining what I do is a little complicated. I don't teach courses anymore; instead, I work more in an administrative role with our Biological and Biomedical graduate students at UNC. I still teach workshops from time to time, but for the most part I work one-on-one with graduate students enrolled in our program that need to improve their critical analysis, or their writing and oral presentation skills - skills that are important for becoming a successful research scientist. I like my job at lot - unlike teaching 200 students, I get to know my students very well and I'm really proud of their accomplishments as they improve throughout their time working with me.

Anyway, I had never really had a conversation with Peyton about what I do, but I guess in a sense I would still consider myself a "teacher". That seems to be the simplest way to explain it to him, as opposed to the 100 words or so it usually takes me to describe what I do. He has come down with strep throat (poor little guy), which means Patrick and I have to juggle our schedules so that one of us can be at home with him. Today I happened to be teaching a couple of workshops to our incoming graduate students, as this is orientation week, one of our busiest times. So, I went to work in the morning to teach the workshops and came home at lunch so that Patrick could go to work. When I came home, Peyton asked me "Where you went?" I told him I had been at work. "What you do at work?" was his next question (I'm always prepared for a series of them). Hmmm...."Well, I'm a teacher". "A Teacher?! NO way! .....Daddy, is Mommy a teacher?" Yes. "Whoa!" Suddenly, I had become really cool in the eyes of my three year old. "Well, what you did at school today, Mommy?" Funny, I ask him this question everyday. His usual reply is, "I don't know". Again, wanting to keep it simple, I told him that I taught some students some math. "You taught your friends?" "No, students" "You mean friends?" "Yes, yes, that's what I meant." I guess in his mind, friends are the people that go to school and sometimes its just easier to agree than to explain. "Did you go outside to play, Mommy?" This was my favorite question. Ahhhh....to be 3 again where I could just go outside to play for awhile as a necessary and integral part of my day. I didn't have the heart to break the news to him that he will eventually outgrow the recess part of his day.

The strep throat came on pretty quickly, starting with severe stomach pains and eventually progressing into a fever and sore throat. We caught it relatively early and got him started on antibiotics. He's feeling a lot better already, and claimed the ice cream that Mrs. Lauren and Amelia brought him to help him feel better (aren't they sweet?!) made his throat feel better and made all of the germs go away.

Someone Wants to Say Hi!

We have hopefully made the rounds in announcing our big news to mostly everyone. But for those of you that may have missed it: We're preggars!

We're very excited, and are happy to have made it through the first trimester. Things have been going well so far, and all the memories of being pregnant with Peyton are coming back.
Things like:
I find Patrick's jokes way more funny when I'm pregnant. (Why? I have no idea.)
My emotions have the ability to swing one way or the other at a moment's notice. And they swing big.
Food is a very central component of my day. All day. Every day.

I had forgotten a thing or two about being pregnant. I have been very, very, very tired during the first trimester. I really don't remember being this tired with Peyton. Patrick says he remembers that I was. And apparently, my labor wasn't so fun. I obviously don't remember it being all that bad because I've signed up to do it again.

I do remember that I had a large baby. Indications so far point to another big baby. I started getting a belly at 5 weeks and quickly had to abandon my normal clothes. Hiding it until I was ready to tell people was a challenge. Not to mention that the ultrasound tech told me yesterday that the baby is measuring a full week bigger than it should be at this point. Yep, sounds about right.

We haven't explained the situation to Peyton yet. No need for him to worry for 28 more weeks about all of the attention he will be deprived of with the addition of a new baby in the house. Patrick did teach him to tell me that I have a big fat belly, so perhaps he will start questioning the reason behind my enlarged abdomen soon. So far, he's content to just laugh along with his daddy.

As I mentioned, I had an ultrasound done yesterday. This was part of a screening they do for trisomy defects when you're around 12 weeks. It was a little too soon to tell the gender, but here are some pictures that were taken. The baby waved several times and the tech was able to get some great shots.

The head is on the right here and the baby is on its stomach:




He/she flipped onto its back:


A good closeup of the arm:


He/She looked at the camera and waved!


The heartbeat. A solid 165bpm (For those of you keeping score, I looked up Peyton's heartrate around this time period and it was 178bpm). These days, no one believes there is a correlation between heart rate and gender.

Upcoming Trip

We're planning a trip home for the week of the 4th of July, and unlike every other trip we've taken down there since Peyton was born, we'll be driving instead of flying. Peyton is clearly a routine-oriented child, and he likes things to be done the same way each time. So the conversation about driving to Nola didn't go very well:

Me: So, we're going to New Orleans soon and we're going to drive in the car to get there.
Peyton: Is it far far away like Disney World? (Everything is measured according to DW distance now)
Me: Well.....its a little farther than Disney World.
Peyton: No, that's not how we get to New Orleans. We get in the car and drive to the airport. And then we take a bus to get to the airplane (he's talking about the shuttle bus from the parking lot). We take an airplane to the airport in New Orleans and then Lollie comes and picks us up, Ok, Mom? That's how we do that.
Me: Uh...well, we're going to do things differently this time. We're going to drive all the way there.
Peyton: NO! WE'RE NOT DRIVING! WE'RE TAKING AN AIRPLANE! (and, yes, he's pretty much yelling at this point).

Oh, this is going to be a longgggggggg car ride.

Treme

Some of you are probably familiar with the HBO series Treme, featuring a unique neighborhood in New Orleans and the musical side of the city. Patrick and I have just finished watching the first season, and the theme song is quite catchy. We taught Peyton a few lines.....(don't worry, we don't actually let him watch the show, he's a little too young). Looking forward to seeing season 2 when it comes out on DVD.

Peyton's New Friend

Peyton has a new friend. His name is Christopher Harrell.

I had been holding on to a Build-a-Bear gift card for some time, waiting for the right time for Peyton to appreciate the process. I decided it was time for us to take a trip and let him create his new friend. It had been awhile since I had been to Build-a-Bear, but the process is pretty simple: You choose the "skin" of whatever you want to make and there are lots to choose from: bears, monkeys, rabbits, dogs, cats, frogs...if you can stuff it, you can make it. Then you decide if you'd like to put some kind of sound inside of your new friend, you stuff it with stuffing to the desired fluffiness, warm a little heart, make a wish, and put it inside to make your friend come alive. You also add a tag to the inside that can be scanned if your new friend is ever lost so that they can reunite it with its rightful owner. From there, it gets all sewn up. You can take it over to the bath tub to clean it all up (with air and brushes), then you give it a name, and print out your new friend's birth certificate.

Peyton picked out a puppy dog (one of the more expensive skins, I might add), and I steered him away from adding a sound like a yippy, annoying dog bark, although the sales lady tried her best to sell Peyton on the idea. We stuffed him all up, making sure he could stand on all 4's but not too much so that he would still be soft and cuddly. We added his heart and Peyton made a wish (who knows what went through his head at this point, but I secretly made a wish for him). Peyton spent a lot of time and care with his new puppy at the bathtub, making sure he was nice and clean. As we filled out the birth certificate (and I took great care to remove my information from every marketing email list), I asked him what he wanted to name him and he said, "Christopher Harrell". Hmmm...interesting choice in names since Christopher happens to be his middle name. I guess he has just a small repertoire of favorite names at this point.

Although we had pretty much maxed out his gift certificate at this point, I thought I'd let Peyton spend a little of his birthday money on an accessory or two. I thought the dog collar and leash would be a cute addition, and we could leave it at that. Nope. Peyton liked the dog collar and leash, but then he wanted the puppy to be on roller skates so that he could actually drag him around. But now I have to buy two sets of roller skates because our animal walks on all fours and they only sell two at a time. Fine. Let's go. Well....you can't put on the roller skates unless you buy shoes too. Once I agreed to the roller skates, there was no going back. I couldn't tell Peyton that we couldn't get them anymore or else I would have to deal with the wrath of a 3 year old when I went back on my word. And you guessed it, those only come in pairs as well, so now I need two sets of shoes for my 4-legged friend in addition to the two sets of roller skates. Well, we're still spending birthday money here. Finally, puppy dog, collar, leash, shoes, and roller skates later (for all 4 legs), we were on our way out the door, with me swearing that it was a very dangerous place for 3 year olds.

Peyton was so excited to get home to introduce Christopher Harrell to daddy and Nellie. I didn't think either of them would react favorably. Daddy took it better than Nellie, but I think she'll warm up to him eventually. Once it was time for Peyton to take a nap, I knew he would want Christopher Harrell to go with him. However, I didn't realize that Christopher Harrell was going to need a bed. Silly me. And a blanket. And you have to take his leash and roller skates and shoes off for him to take a nap. Of course. After finally doing the nap-time routine for both Peyton and Christopher Harrell, I said "good night Peyton" as I was walking out the door. "But MOM! You didn't say good night to Christopher Harrell!" Oh, dear.

Naturally, I could still hear Peyton up in his room playing after about 30 minutes so I went up to remind him that he was supposed to be taking a nap. I pointed out that Christopher Harrell was still in his bed taking a nap like he was supposed to be. But then my son pointed out to me that in fact Christopher Harrell was not sleeping because his eyes were not closed. How do you argue with that?

I managed to snap a picture of the two new best friends post-bath tonight. Peyt is wearing his PJs and his Mickey Mouse hat. And, yes, the bed time routine now includes putting Christopher Harrell to bed too.

The Lowdown on the House

Its finally time to share the details of our house! We're building a house in Apex, NC, south of where we live now. Patrick and I both have good jobs and we have good friends here, and we have a made the difficult decision to stay in this area for now. We miss our family and friends back home terribly, though, so we've chosen a house with what we think will be a very comfortable guest area for visitors (hint, hint!). Check out the floor plan - one modification will be that there will be a full bath downstairs for the guest bedroom. (See - comfy!)

The house is in a brand new neighborhood that is being built so we've had the exciting opportunity to pick out our cabinets, counter tops, flooring, exterior paint color, etc. Here is a peak at our cabinets (bottom left - espresso), floor (top) and counter tops (bottom right).

Thank you to everyone who voted for our exterior color and passed along their comments. Patrick and I have gone back and forth trying to decide between the two. One some days, we were leaning one way and on other days we were leaning another. This evening, we were both leaning Timberbark, so Timberbark it will be.

This is a sight map of our neighborhood, and the arrow points to the location of our future house. It will back up to an open space, which will eventually have something like a playground or gazebo or something in it.



The neighborhood is near the railroad tracks, which we're not exactly thrilled about, but we think Peyton will think its the coolest thing ever! The street in front of our house isn't cut yet, so this building process is still going to take some time. The sewer and water lines need to be run, and the lots need to be graded, and this will take about 4 months. From there, they will start building the houses in Phase 2 (of which ours is one of them). This will take about 3 months. So, we're not expecting to be able to move in until October-ish. That gives us plenty of time to sell our house. We're going to start meeting with Real Estate Agents soon, and our plan is to have the house on the market by the second weekend in April. There are a few other houses in our subdivision that are up for sale, and they've been on the market for awhile. We're keeping our fingers crossed that someone looking for a good starter home will fall in love with our house and everything we've done with it. Hopefully they'll be as happy here as we've been.

Our New House Exterior

So, I promise a post is coming on the details of our new house. But, quickly, I'm taking a survey to get people's opinions of the exterior color of the house. We've narrowed it down to 2 choices - as you can see, one is a brownish/green color, the other is a blue color. The pictures above are the design of our house, and I have colored in the different colors (I know its not the best coloring job, but you get the idea.) We can't do anything like white trim with the blue house or change the color of the shutters, etc. Once we choose the main exterior color, the trim and shutters are predetermined. There were lots of colors, and we've narrowed it down to these. Please choose your favorite in the survey on the right. Feel free to leave comments to explain your choice.

(There are a couple of other houses in the neighborhood that are the brown color, but there isn't a house in the neighborhood that is the blue color yet.)

***Disclaimer****We are in no way obligated to choose the most popular choice for the exterior of our house :)